Transcript
APO APOROSA: Until recently kava used by ethnicities other than Pacific Islanders was relatively rare but over the last few years I've noticed a real increase in other ethnicities, even Europeans and that attending kava sessions and some of them breaking away and forming their own kava circles in which they are replicating some of the Pasifika aspects of kava so I thought it was just time to get a few people together who are interested in kava and obviously to hold this workshop and start discussing some of these matters and all the other related ones.
JO O'BRIEN: So what exactly are the topics up for discussion?
AA: One of the guys, Zbigniew (Dumienski) from Auckland University I would imagine he'll be talking about kava use by non-Pasifikans but more so those people who are maybe using it at nighttime as a stress reliever or a sleep aid or something like that. I would also imagine that Edmund Fehoko a Tongan mate of mine, he's one of the organisers as well, I would imagine he'll be talking about young Tongans and the use of kalapu or kava clubs is probably not a good word because it sounds like a night club, but kava venues, using them as cultural classrooms for learning. And I'm going to be talking about a lot of the misconceptions that are out there about kava and just trying to correct those.
JO: So from what you're saying there is a whole culture around kava that's growing in New Zealand?
AA: Absolutely we've estimated that on average Friday Saturday night they'd be probably, well conservatively 20,000 kava users on a Friday Saturday night, and that's in the culturally constructed kava environment, more so than just those who are drinking maybe at home, mixing up a glass and drinking it for medicinal you know sleep value or whatever so there's all those added on top of it. But it certainly is increasing.
JO: On the day from what I'm reading kava is actually going to be part of the workshop itself?
AA: It will be what we are going to do afterwards is move into a time of talanoa which is a Pacific wide word for discussion and for Pasifika people kava often facilitates that talanoa so that's what we'll do afterwards and I imagine there'll be some good quality conversation had in that time.
JO: And in the welcoming ceremony as well?
AA: Most definitely the whole kava situation for us is culturally driven so you know we have to have an opening ceremony which is very similar to if you could imagine say the powhiri on the marae or the whakatau in a Maori setting. We have to have this to welcome people in and create that mutuality between us I suppose is a good way of putting it.
JO: So are you expecting there to be a lot of interest in this workshop?
AA: I think that there will be, yeah and maybe we'll look at see where we'll go from there maybe into a conference situation but it's been a couple of years since we've had a kava-specific conference. I think the last one was the one at the University of the South Pacific in 2008 so it's been quite some time and there's been a lot of movement since then and uptake of new ideas in kava so I think it's well overdue.
